Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

16. The Epiphany

I imagined the scorpia hiding on that roof or in this corner. I smoothed both away, the goosebumps and the fears. My disguise had previously fooled the priestesses who raised me from infancy. It should be good enough to fool a stranger who believed she had already killed me. She probably had places to be, important people to assassinate, like a busy little bee.

Probably.

Once the Naktymyana was over, I pressed my second to last coin into the sweaty hand of a guard patrolling the theater. Saving Kozima's neck was a ruinous enterprise. The woman smiled knowingly and called to the backstage crowd.

"A wealthy patron wishing to remain incognito, desires to express her admiration with arts to Parneres!"

Parneres... At the sound of his name, the long-dead barracuda came alive in my chest. She also invited two snakes to join her. The trip made itself quite a home. The barracuda pounded my lungs with its tail, breaking my breathing, while the snakes squeezed my heart and stomach in their coils.

"Lucky me!" Parneres called from the maze. His voice sounded better in my ears than all the songs in the play. It was Divine music from Nirvana.

Keeping my eyes peeled for shurikens whistling through the air, I made a beeline for it through the familiar backstage chaos.

The actors bumped into me. I stepped out of their way only to bump into discarded outfits and crates full of masks. Barely hidden from the after-show stampede in a tiny alcove, Parneres was a welcoming oasis of tranquility. He had a towel around his neck, and a bowl of steaming water and a sponge to wash off his body-paint by his side.

"Lucky you," I agreed.

He half-rose from the crate, then slumped back. His brows quirked upward. After what must have been years of changing costumes and masks, maybe I should have expected him to recognize me, but I was secretly pleased that he did. I only hoped that the scorpia assassin was less adept at piercing the disguises than her underling slash relative.

I didn't mind the pause. It was an extreme pleasure to look at him without a shirt on.

"An incognito art aficionado! They should have mentioned it was the woman who swam in the River Vash and returned to tell the tale," he said with a light bow.

The barracuda and her friends vacated the premises in my rib cage. The coils around my heart and stomach loosened so the two organs bounced around.

I laughed happily, delivered of all burdens, carefree. "Just the Golden Canal, Parneres. Your ah... sister?"

"My cousin," he corrected.

"Your cousin had exaggerated her achievement."

"If you knew the full extent of her achievements, you would have made a better judgment call."

I shook my head to dismiss his assumptions. "This isn't a caprice, Parneres. I'm a fighting woman and I come bearing gifts for you."

Behind the exasperated façade, his smile hid true warmth. He couldn't help his nature, just like I couldn't help mine. This man was born a tease. "More dates, young Mistress?"

"Almost. Open your hand."

He obeyed.

I dropped the blood-red pearl into his waiting palm, making sure it had enough height to sparkle in the uneven light while it fell.

He caught the gem deftly out of the air and rolled it around to admire the smooth shiny bobble. "Had you become better at stealing?"

The actors would hand you the best cues without even thinking about it! I shrugged and crossed my arms at my chest so the scars would be in full view.

"A monster possessed by Bhuta's essence owned this before I had slain it. Alas, this trifle isn't enough to buy your freedom from your cousin, but you could add it to your stash. You need to get away from her."

I thought about it a lot. Technically, I stole from Lydia, Sharim and my mates. I couldn't sell it without losing a lot of value, so the pearl would bring only a third of a decent horse's price. A woman couldn't ride a third of a horse, could she? So, I decided to give it to Parneres as a token of my esteem.

He held up the pearl, a solidified blood drop between his thumb and forefinger, then extended it back to me. "Thank you, but even if I had a thousand of those, it wouldn't set me free. My bond can't be dissolved with gold."

Outside of Gala's Temple things were never easy. "Consider it a pledge of blood, if that's the price of your bond," I said.

We played a little game where he tried to return the pearl, and I stood my ground like a mule. In my heart it was his, and I wanted the reality to conform to my heart. Finally, he gave up and tucked it away.

"We don't have time for this, Mistress. You had slain a fearsome monster and I won't diminish that, but you're in danger here. Please trust me on that."

Not him too! Kozima's fears were hard to take already. But like he said, we didn't have time to argue. And maybe, just maybe, I needed more training before I could take on a trained assassin. I patted his knee. "Parneres, I need your help. Do this one thing for me, and I'll never come by the theater again."

The promise came easy. It encompassed his theater and any other one with the same repertoire for at least a year. The thought of seeing a single scene from Naktymyana again brought on a massive headache.

The skin around his eyes tightened, as if I was trying his patience. Or making him worried. Or both. "What can I do for you then?"

"Oh, you're going to like it."

His eyes grew momentarily wide when I reached for Anastasia's masterpiece inside my saree. I allowed him a minute to blink rapidly in surprise or whatnot.

"Naktym's husband... what's his name again?"

"What?"

"Your character in the Naktymyana, that one line you have? What's his name?"

Thus reassured he hadn't misheard my question the first time, Parneres shrugged one shoulder. For a man so exuberant, so full of passion on stage, this vague aura of amusement surrounding him in private seemed too muted.

"If you had bothered to read the epic lovingly passed down from one bard to another for twelve generations, every version of it in every language, you'd have learned that his name is Naktym's first husband."

This was great. Better than I had ever imagined. If I could sing like the firebird twins, I'd have broken into a hymn on the spot.

"This, all of this--" I balanced the scrolls on my hand and bounced it to demonstrate how bulky the bundle was, "are the words of a new play. It's a one-man show. As many words as you wish to speak. And you could name the character any way you like."

Passions I was missing flickered in his eyes.

I saved the best for the last, of course. "And this role is yours!"